Faith - What Faith?

One thing that has always confused me is man’s paradoxical faith in God and the practice of their respective religion. One follows a particular religion and practices its rituals and norms. But when it comes to others’ following similar norms and rituals of their respective religion which happen to be different from his/ her own, why does one grow critical of such people and their practices. I am surprised that on the one hand we call ourselves learned and awakened but the very next moment we do not wish to give the same rights of religious practice to others which we seem to enjoy as our birth-right.

Secondly, we have often heard from these religious people that the scriptures of their religion are the direct communication of message and instructions from the Supreme i.e. Allah, Khuda, Ishwar, Bhagwan, Vahe Guru, God etc. One would be happy to learn that the scriptures have the Divine norms and instructions of godly living to human beings and as such everyone should inculcate in themselves the sparks of divinity. If the Quran has the divine versions, so must have the Bible and the Guru Granth Sahib and the Gita.

How can one say that while their scriptures are the direct communication from God (whatever name they may give to their Divinity) no other religion can claim and enjoy similar privilege? It is not just a case of being monopolist in this case but apart from being indifferent to the content of other religious scriptures they even become hostile and would negate and condemn as blasphemy whatever is asserted in those religious books of other religions. Something that should have become a binding and strengthening force of communal peace and harmony has become an instrument of discord and hatred.

In the present times most of us claim to be educated, awakened on matters of religion, and even boast of being liberal and democratic, but when it comes to the question of co-existence of different religious faiths they assume the posture of a rigid rather fanatic individuality. In these times, with widespread education, one would expect one to support a broadminded approach regarding religious practice, but the truth is that with every passing day we are getting imprisoned in the water-tight compartments of religious beliefs and would rather destroy other such compartments with our venom of hatred and violence than think of peacefully exiting with all other such floating compartments on the waters of human society.